Will big tech transform how we watch sports? ‘If you feel smarter watching something, you'll watch more of it'

Irish Times

12 hours ago

Sports tech has evolved significantly over the past decade and several of the largest players in IT are deepening their reach in the space.
It poses an obvious question, why? While sports are high profile, it's not like
Microsoft
or
Amazon
need to get involved in order to attract attention. The real appeal is product visibility.
By showcasing how their services aid elite sport, from performance through broadcast and fan engagement, it's easier for these large multinationals to tell stories to customers.
'Sports is a powerful storytelling vehicle for us,' says Julie Souza, global head of sports at Amazon Web Services (AWS). 'With F1, they are particularly keen on innovating. We look for sports partnerships that share that kind of passion for innovation.
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'We have F1 insights which help provide information on tyre performance or maximum speeds, to help fans understand what they're watching. I firmly believe that if you feel smarter watching something, you'll watch more of it.'
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The levels of data generated in top tier sports today are staggering but F1 stands out in particular. Each car generates 1.1 million data points per second from more than 300 sensors.
For comparison, a full football match in the Bundesliga, which AWS also works with, generates just 3.6 million data points in a single match. The entire NFL season in American football generates 500 million data points, the equivalent of eight minutes of racing for a single F1 car.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes tries to evade Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Jalen Carter during Super Bowl LIX. Photograph: Timothy A Clary/AFP via Getty
'Nobody is making sense of that data by looking at it with the naked eye. That's a job for machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI),' says Souza.
'We can use that data to engage fans in the broadcast and tell them more stories, identifying what is happening around the track.'
The impact goes beyond the viewing experience, it was through data gathered by AWS that F1 redesigned its cars in 2022 to enable more overtaking.
'The way the cars were designed, there was a turbulent aerodynamic wake that made it difficult for the following car to pass. With the aid of AWS technologies, they redesigned the car so that the wake went up and over the following car,' says Souza.
'The season after the new design was introduced, overtaking increased by 30 per cent.'
While F1 may involve the most data points of top-end sport, the challenges of others present unique testing grounds for big tech companies.
'When you watch a golf tournament, only 15 per cent of all shots are televised. What happens if you're a broadcast partner in Scandinavia and Viktor Hovland is nowhere near the top, so the main feed isn't showing him?' says Souza.
'With the PGA Tour, every shot is sent to the cloud so the Scandinavian broadcaster can essentially create their own broadcast while still following the leaders.'
Viktor Hovland. Photograph: Matteo Ciambelli/Inpho
In addition to making it easier for sports audiences to engage across regions, multinational tech giants also find sports help them engage their customers better. IBM has a long association with Wimbledon and the tennis event has become one of its key marketing tools.
'We can increase engagement and relevance around our key offerings and campaigns, aligned with IBM's strategic priorities,' says Kevin Farrar, head of sports partnerships at IBM EMEA.
'It helps us to drive meaningful conversation and pipeline with clients and prospects through deep engagement and immersive storytelling,' he says.
The tech giant has worked with both Wimbledon and the upcoming US Open for more than 30 years, with tennis providing plenty of opportunities for IBM to demonstrate its latest innovations.
'Deeper collaboration with both organisations has seen an ever-evolving digital fan experience, which has opened both tournaments up to a new audience of fans who can experience the tournament wherever in the world they may be,' says Farrar.
The 2025 edition of Wimbledon saw the introduction of Match Chat and Live Likelihood to Win. The former is an AI assistant that answers fan questions during matches while the latter uses a broad range of data sources to work out the probable victor as a match progresses.
That focus on the fan experience is where Farrar expects the next wave of innovation in sports tech to evolve.
'Innovation is leading to an increasingly personalised fan experience. Fans want to engage in their chosen sport in ever more immersive ways, and technology such as generative AI is allowing us to create fan experiences to satisfy this wish,' he says.
'The digital interaction with fans is allowing us to learn more about what specific data points interest them.'
Sports organisations are generating vast amounts of data. This creates opportunities for deeper insights and smarter decisions
AI
is unsurprisingly at the core of most of these innovations. Microsoft has signed a five-year deal with the English Premier League, with the goal of getting its AI tools noticed.
'With 1.8 billion fans across 189 countries, the league provides a unique opportunity to showcase how Microsoft AI can personalise fan experiences, modernise operations, and unlock new business models through data and AI,' says Russell Banks, Azure infrastructure go-to-market lead at Microsoft Ireland.
'In terms of fan engagement, we co-developed the Premier League Companion, a digital platform powered by Azure OpenAI, delivering personalised insights, stats, and content from over 30 seasons of data, 300,000 articles, and 9,000 videos. AI also powers real-time match overlays and post-match analysis, enriching the experience for fans and broadcasters alike.'
While sport provides a showcase for tech multinationals to show off their wares, Banks says there's plenty of demand for such services coming from clubs and governing bodies.
'Sports organisations are generating vast amounts of data,' says Banks. 'From player performance to fan behaviour, this creates opportunities for deeper insights and smarter decisions. As operations grow more complex, efficient workflows and scalable content delivery become essential.
'Clubs and leagues are also exploring new revenue streams by leveraging their data and content. This demand spans across sports and geographies.'
While fan engagement and athlete performance are the obvious areas where sports and tech will be likely to continue to engage, Banks expects wider uses to be found.
'We see a growing focus on sustainability, with IoT [internet of things] and AI helping venues reduce energy use and environmental impact. Multilingual AI assistants and adaptive experiences are making sport more accessible to global audiences,' he says.
'In parallel, we expect to see more federations and clubs investing in AI-powered coaching tools, digital twins for training, and real-time analytics to support athlete development and injury prevention.'
That demand will, in turn, continue to help large tech companies expand their customer bases.
'It's a way to tell complex stories in a manner that's accessible, understandable, and interesting,' says Souza. 'Think about the NFL schedule, there are 26,000 factors that need to be considered creating 1 quadrillion [1 followed by 15 zeros] possible schedules.
'We tell that story because we make sense of large volumes of complex data. If we can do that for the NFL, we can certainly do that in life sciences, automotive or financial services. Sports is a grounding and compelling storytelling vehicle.'